What went wrong doctor? We went out for coffee just that morning. He was okay when I left him. The next day he was raving mad.

The afternoon he arrived when he talked to us, we thought he was joking when he said he thought people were keeping things from him. Later in the night he became confused. The next morning he was agitated. The urine test showed that he had an infection and we started antibiotics. Since then he’s become more unwell with his heart failure and lung disease. We think he’s dying. He’s been very distressed and we need to calm him down.

I’ve told him off because of some of the things he’s been saying.

He can’t help himself. His body has become too unwell and that has made his mind confused. It’s not him saying those things, it’s the illness. If he knew what had been going on he would hate it. We need to calm things down for him, he exhausted but he can’t relax enough to fall asleep. We want to make him more comfortable.

Is he going to recover from this?

No, I don’t think so. It will get worse. We’re not going to hold back when it comes to controlling his symptoms. He will likely become more sleepy if we can make him more relaxed.

Okay, we need to go out and arrange things for the next stage. Can you keep him alive until we come back?

I’m not sure if we can do that but we will make him comfortable no matter what happens.

She stooped as she kissed him on his forehead. “See you soon darling, you keep an eye on everyone while we are out.”